June 25, 2009|By Trevor Jensen, TRIBUNE REPORTER and Tribune reporters Robert Mitchum and Andrew Wang contributed to this report

John Callaway listened to his guests with an almost theatrical intensity, screwing up his face and looking more like the small-town West Virginia boy he was than the respected big-city journalist he became.

"So tell me," he'd begin questions, patiently framed and meticulously structured in a way that led to revelations from politicians and celebrities more accustomed to speaking in sound bites and cliche.

FOR THE RECORD - This obituary contains corrected material, published June 28, 2009.

"John had a pure heart," said Phil Ponce, who took over "Chicago Tonight" from Mr. Callaway. "He was genuinely curious, and he had the ability to connect the dots where his curiosity took him."

Best known for his 15 years as host of the nightly news program "Chicago Tonight" on public television, Mr. Callaway, 72, died of an apparent heart attack on Tuesday, June 23, after becoming dizzy in a store in Racine, Wis., said his wife, Sandra.

A college dropout who often told of arriving in Chicago with 71 cents in his pocket, Mr. Callaway left "Chicago Tonight" in 1999 but continued to conduct interviews on "Friday Night" and host "Chicago Stories" segments on WTTW-Ch. 11.

"Chicago Tonight," as its name implies, focused on local issues. But on it and on his later programs Mr. Callaway went one-on-one with an eclectic group of more widely known figures including writer John Updike, cartoonist Charles Addams, composer Aaron Copland, singer Leontyne Price and physician Jonas Salk.

He never appeared less than fascinated by his guests. "He was kind of childlike in that way, in the best sense of the word," Ponce said.

Extensive preparation was the key to his interviews -- one of the art's three pillars, he asserted, the other two being listening and posing adroit follow-up questions. Ponce once remarked on the thickness of a book he saw Mr. Callaway with before an interview with Henry Kissinger. "I wouldn't dare interview Dr. Kissinger without having read every word," Mr. Callaway replied.

Jowly and heavyset -- the buttons on his sport coats always seemed to be straining a bit -- Mr. Callaway was a bona fide newsman who started with City News Bureau, a wire service that trained scores of reporters.

His father was editor of the newspaper in New Martinsville, W. Va., where Mr. Callaway grew up in a house filled with music and literature. In the one-man show he staged in 2001, he recalled his father's heavy drinking and how money was often tight.

A lack of funds led him to leave Ohio Wesleyan University after 1 1/2 years. He hitchhiked across Ohio and caught a train to Chicago, arriving on Feb. 6, 1956. He was immediately enthralled with the bright lights and bustle.

"When I stepped out of the station, I suddenly sensed that this was my city, that I was in the right place at the right time," he told the Tribune in 2001.

Following City News, he got into radio, working as a reporter and producer, and later news director for WBBM-AM. According to John Hultman, a longtime WBBM anchor, Mr. Callaway hosted a Sunday night interview show that would go on for several hours, perfecting the style he would use on TV.

In May 1968, Mr. Callaway oversaw the station's move to an all-news format, hiring reporters and producers who covered several tumultuous years in Chicago, starting with the riots around the 1968 Democratic Convention.

He did it all at the station, reporting from the streets, writing scripts and developing the format. He was made a vice president of CBS Radio in New York and hosted a nationally distributed public policy series, "Conversations from Wingspread."

"Chicago Tonight" debuted on Ch. 11 in 1984. The first guest was then-Mayor Harold Washington, and soon a small but dedicated audience tuned in each night to watch Mr. Callaway gently and persuasively, only sometimes sternly, get guests to open up.

"My motives are right, even if my methods stink," Mike Ditka told him, according to a 1994 profile of Mr. Callaway. "I could subpoena you overnight if you became my enemy," said Richard Daley when he was Cook County state's attorney, according to the same article.

All guests were treated with utmost respect.

"Whether he was interviewing Henry Kissinger or a street musician form Maxwell Street, he honored the encounter," Ponce said.

Off-camera, and occasionally on, Mr. Callaway was a bit of a ham. He relished singing "Embraceable You" and other American songbook standards with his two daughters, Ann Hampton Callaway and Liz Foster Callaway, both stars of cabaret and Broadway.

After leaving the daily grind of "Chicago Tonight," Mr. Callaway put together "John Callaway Tonight," a one-man show where audiences heard stories about his life and watched him drop-kick a football.

His broadcasting work brought him more than 100 awards, including a Peabody Award and 16 Emmys, according to WTTW. He also picked up 10 honorary doctorate degrees. He was the founding director of the University of Chicago's William Benton Fellowship Program in broadcast journalism for mid-career radio and TV broadcasters, which ran from 1983 to 1994.

Mr. Callaway's first two marriages ended in divorce.

In addition to his wife and daughters, he is survived by his wife's four children, a sister, Hamp Callaway Karras; and one grandson (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text).